From more than 6000 entries, judges have assembled a gallery of 68 images that tell the story of an exceptional year in Aotearoa. Select five of your favourites to vote in the Ockham Residential People’s Choice award!

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Goose-neck barnacles and crabs colonise a floating Adidas football drifting off the coast of Northland. “In the desert-like pelagic realm, every bit of structure is prime real estate,” says Crispin Middleton. “Any life is usually concentrated around drifting structures like this, so whenever we spot any flotsam or jetsam, we go in for a closer look.”

One of Simon Runting’s favourite photography subjects is the pāpango, or New Zealand scaup, a diving duck with a silhouette like a bath toy. “I like to drop in to Western Springs lake when it is raining to look for just this type of image,” says Runting. “These small ducks tend to look a bit grumpy when pictured head on.”

On her way into Westport, Jay Drew noticed a kōtuku perched in a tree. She happened to have a long lens with her, and crept underneath the bird to capture it from an unusual perspective. “It was a blue-sky morning but I felt the image had more impact when it was seen as a black and white, as the eyes of the bird stand out in an almost comical manner,” she says.

Crispin Middleton was at home when he spotted this praying mantis grab a wasp and begin to chew it, still wriggling, face-first. He wanted to get a close-focus wide-angle picture of the action, but whenever he got too near, the mantis stopped feeding, and looked like it would drop the wasp. “We eventually found a distance both the mantis and I were happy with,” says Middleton.

Having already made one attempt to capture this image, Simon Runting knew he needed a few factors to line up: low tide, a clear night, and of course, the full moon. They came together very early one December morning. “I had to constantly move to align the waking gannets with the moon as it dipped over the clifftop,” says Runting. “It was then a case of hoping to get the birds doing something in frame.”

These emperor penguins had been sitting on the pack ice for some time, while Richard Young glimpsed orca surfacing next to them. Finally, some of the penguins decided it was safe to get back in the sea. “Shortly later, they came flying back up out of the water,” says Young. After noticing one penguin jump up in this spot, Young trained his camera on it and waited.

When Paul Gibson heard that a rare white pīwakawaka/fantail had been spotted in the hills above Lake Rotokare, he immediately planned a trip to photograph it. The route up to the ridge where it had been seen was so steep and damp that he had to strap crampons to his boots, but at the top he immediately found the bird, feeding on insects in the morning sunlight.

Around 400 wild horses roam in the Waiouru Military Training Area, and Kelly Wilson can recognise individuals by sight—such as this stallion, Cirrus, photographed at sunrise. Wilson has spent four years documenting the herd and recording the horses’ lineages for the non-profit Kaimanawa Legacy Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving and documenting the wild herd in the Kaimanawa Ranges.

Julie Chandelier has been photographing dusky dolphins off the coast of Kaikōura for four years, but this was the first time she’d witnessed them mating in front of her camera lens underwater. “They didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence at all, and they kept circling me for a few minutes,” she says.

Shortly after sunrise, a kāruhiruhi/pied shag catches its breakfast: a mullet. Jonathan Harrod, hidden in the vegetation on the edge of the estuary, correctly predicted exactly where the shag would surface from its dive to capture it in focus and backlit by the sun, creating the illuminated droplets of water surrounding it.

Jason Grant was sitting watching a duck and her ducklings when the mother corralled them into a group. While her attention was diverted, a pūkeko stalked up, grabbed one of the ducklings and scampered away. “I was lucky enough to catch an image just as he looked back to see if he was being pursued,” says Grant, “or had got away with his crime.”

A flock of tōrea pango/variable oystercatchers take off in a flurry at sunset on the Firth of Thames. D’Artagnan Sprengel was photographing other shorebirds at the time, but he switched to a slow shutter speed and panned his camera at the same speed as the birds, shooting a burst of images, aiming for a frame with a painterly look and feel.

Two taiohi stand holding their flags at Te Pūtake o te Riri commemorations at Pukehinahina, Gate Pā, in Tauranga. Te Pūtake o te Riri is a series of events remembering the battles of the New Zealand Land Wars, and Te Rawhitiroa Bosch has been documenting them since their early days.

Last November, a 15-metre-long sperm whale became stranded on a sandbar off South New Brighton, then washed up on the beach the following morning. Sharon Brophy happened to be passing as the local hapū, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, were preparing to perform karakia and bless the whale. The whale was given the name Te Koha, the gift.

After all the wedding speeches, the cake-cutting and chatting, the bride finally cuts loose with the guests in a traditional Samoan dance called the taualuga. The taualuga is generally performed at cultural and social gatherings—such as wedding receptions—and photographer Monica Winder was right in amongst it.

As Cyclone Hale bore down on the Coromandel, locals scrambled to save the Mercury Bay Boating Club building from the huge storm swell. Patrick Stewart, who is helping place big sand bags, is swamped by waves as his colleague John Colbourne manages to scramble up the bank.

Brendan Taylor relaxes while James McMahon warms up during the 2023 NABBA Christchurch Classic Bodybuilding Championships. Kai Schwoerer was working on a photo essay on bodybuilding in New Zealand, and followed the athletes for the entire day of competition.

Winter light fills the lounge of the Forest Lodge as kids play and tired parents attempt to relax on the morning after a friend’s 40th birthday party. Joe Harrison waited for the right moment as the children bustled around the lodge—a classic mountain hut originally built by the Mount Cheeseman Ski Club.

When George Heard got news of a young pilot whale that had stranded on a Banks Peninsula beach, he jumped in the car, not knowing yet exactly where the stranding was. He found members of the non-profit Project Jonah crew and locals attempting to refloat the whale, which was eventually euthanised.

Anna Naygrow hangs out the washing at her tiny home on the hills near Wakefield, Nelson, where she lives with partner Christoph Riedel and daughter Molly. Braden Fastier first met the family in 2017 when they were building their tiny home. Six years later, he returned to see how they were getting on.

Alana Thomas stands on her marae ātea, the open area in front of the largest meeting house, after completing the ceremony appointing her a judge of the Māori Land Court in the presence of her whānau and iwi. Her friend Te Rawhitiroa Bosch was there to document the event.

Shannon—bartender, bouncer, and handyman—was out the back fixing the door of this Motueka pub when Louis Macalister walked past. “I think for these kinds of street portraits the challenges are usually the same,” says Macalister. “Gaining trust, building up the courage to actually approach people, getting a nice frame from an uncontrollable environment.”

“I was walking down K Road on my way to uni one morning and noticed this woman sitting outside a cafe reading the paper with the most impressive boots I’d ever seen,” says Louis Macalister. He kept going but, thinking better of it, made a U-turn, struck up a brief chat, and took a couple of pictures. “I’ve never seen her again on K Road.”

Horomona Horo was at a wānanga shortly after receiving his mataora—a tattoo that covers the entire face—when Te Rawhitiroa Bosch, who was also part of the wānanga, came across him. “I asked him to look my way and captured this portrait,” says Bosch. “Knowing the person, the place and the kaupapa made this photo possible.”

Selwyn 16-year-old Amelia McConnochie trains for the World Artistic Swimming Junior Championships alone—the rest of her team is scattered around the country. Peter Meecham made this portrait of her by placing his camera in a fish tank, which was held just beneath the waterline. “For the reflection to be clear, the water needs to be very still,” he says. “The slightest ripple will spoil it.”

At a workshop held by the Christchurch Photographic Society, Nicola Jackson had the opportunity to work with a model, Georgia. Jackson had Georgia look through a piece of shower glass under natural daylight. “For me, photography is all about mindfulness and being able to leave all of life's challenges elsewhere,” she says.

Professionally, Liv van Leeuwen often finds herself photographing landscapes and architecture; personally, she documents her family. In this picture, she sought to capture her son’s thoughtful, curious personality, his freckles and long lashes. “With limited time and patience from the subject!” she says.

Steven Tallott and his daughter, Sophie, play around on an evening break during the summer harvest on the family farm. Joe Harrison had been hoping to document the harvest for several years, but the timing never worked out. Last summer, he got a text message from Steven’s wife inviting him out, and he jumped at the opportunity. “Just took three years,” he says.

After spotting Annie at the Point Chevalier Bowling Club, Jessie Casson was struck by her sense of style. “A few weeks later, I approached her and asked to photograph her,” says Casson. The two began collaborating on a project “celebrating getting older with vitality and optimism”. The hardest part? Deciding on Annie’s outfit. “She had so many to choose from!”

A few days before television host Jenny-May Clarkson revealed her moko kauae to the nation on Breakfast, Jessie Casson made this portrait of her. The two drove around Auckland looking for the right location—“I knew I wanted to create an image that showed Jenny-May’s strength, journey, and vulnerability,” says Casson. In the end, the wind lent the right atmosphere.

Ann Bateman, of Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki, watches the sunrise with her husband, Bo, during a morning karakia to address the new day. The light was very low, so Derek Morrison shot this portrait with a wide-open aperture, knowing it would put Bo out of focus, but allow Ann’s strength and mana to shine through.

On holiday in Auckland and strolling through the Samoa Village at the Pasifika Festival, Urlin Mulitalo caught the attention of photographer Dean Purcell, who was documenting people the festival for Viva magazine’s street style column. Mulitalo’s cousin Blessing (left) and brother Gideon (right) hoist an impromptu backdrop.

Blint Varghese is dressed as the legendary King Mahabali during Onam, a 10-day festival celebrated throughout the Indian state of Kerala, as well as by the Malayali community around the world. To document Varghese’s finery, Braden Fastier looked for a background with complementary colours, and compensated for the strong afternoon light with a flash and reflective umbrella.

Canterbury woman Sally (not her real name) is 39 years old and dangerously underweight. Despite her 2019 anorexia diagnosis, Sally is still waiting to be assessed for treatment. She describes herself as being “desperate” for help; she has been struggling with the disorder for more than 20 years.

Photographed wearing make-up, earrings, and feminine clothing for the first time, Benny holds their arms wide, a posture that represents opening up to the world and standing firm in their new role. “This was their first time being photographed as a non-binary person and they were very nervous,” says Duyvestyn-Smith.

Jeng-Shiang Lin spent eight nights alone in the muddy, cold Waipu glow-worm caves in order to make this picture. It took many evenings just to find the best composition. “I felt like I was in the world of the movie Avatar, spending several nights with these glow-worms,” says Lin.

The aurora australis forecast predicted an incredible display of the southern lights, so Ryan Domenico and a couple of friends decided to head to the highest point in the area: the summit of Single Cone, in The Remarkables. “It turned out to be the largest solar storm in over a decade and a night in the mountains we will never forget,” he says.

Roger Wandless was on a camping trip to photograph the Fiordland landscape when a different subject captured his attention—or rather, demanded it. The swirling cloud and misty sunshine provided a dramatic backdrop to a circus of kea which arrived to investigate Wandless’s campsite—and divebomb him as he made this picture.

In autumn, the leaves on the poplars in Wānaka turn bright yellow. Richard Young has been documenting this spot every autumn since 2017, and in this image, he frames the background trunks with the leaves of another tree in the foreground. “This photograph has come from knowing these trees and developing my expression of them,” he says.

A breaking wave has the texture and quality of a stained-glass window when backlit by the sun. On a summer morning’s swim, Oscar Hetherington had noticed the quality of light passing through the swell, and determined to capture an image with the sun directly behind the lip of the wave.

On a quiet day, Iain McGregor decided to head up to the Port Hills to check on the landscape that had been damaged by fire a month earlier. He was surprised to find new growth, and immediately set about documenting it, first focusing on the small shoots, then stepping back to capture the entire scene.

To Meghan Maloney, it looked a bit like The Wall from Game of Thrones: the towering ice-capped cliff on the side of Franklin Island in the Ross Sea. Two south polar skuas fly above it, unfazed by the large snowflakes falling. Maloney shot the scene from a Zodiac: to her, it represents the desolation and remoteness of the harsh Antarctic environment.

The tihi, or summit, of Taranaki Mounga peers through thick cloud on a gloomy August day. Adrian Cleary was at home in Taranaki, doing some planting on his property, when he noticed the peak appear above him. He grabbed his camera and was able to capture a few frames before the tihi disappeared again.

Tori Harp was on her morning commute to work—on skis—when she caught sight of this frozen chairlift. A cold, windy morning combined with fresh snowfall had encased the chair in ice. “Luckily, I skied with my camera clipped to my pack, along with a telephoto lens,” she says.

Samuel Gamble saw a giant smoke cloud over the Port Hills on February 14, 2024. Not wanting to get in the way of emergency services, he put on his biggest lens and shot this frame from a local park. “Being colour-blind, I often choose to shoot in black and white,” he says. “The circumstances in this photo begged for colour so I had a go and really like how it came out.”

On his way to meet his family in Hanmer Springs, Joe Harrison noticed these hay bales beside the road. “The sun was starting to set and the light was perfect so I stayed about 10 minutes shooting photos before leaving so I didn't miss dinner,” he says. The fence and road limited the framing of the shot, and he had only one lens with him—a 40mm prime.

On an unusually calm day on Cook Strait, Ian Harrison was passing the time on the ferry. He took this picture with his phone with the sea framed within the window, making sure the lines were square. “Post-processing has proved to be a real challenge,” he says. “I’m used to using ‘proper’ cameras.”

“The day after Cyclone Gabrielle went through Auckland, I woke up to see a flooded lake just outside my home,” says Chris Lai. “Karaka Lakes is a reasonably new area, and the lake is meant to be a stormwater retention pond.” The lake did its job. Other locals turned up to marvel at the sight and the urban engineering that had allowed their homes to escape the flooding.

Instead of photographing Te Uru Gallery director Adrienne Schierning in front of the distinctive West Auckland building, Alex McVinnie-Maidment chose to picture her at the rear of the gallery façade. He positioned Schierning to be visible within the reflections on the glass, while retaining the colour of the building’s cladding and stairs.

It could be an art gallery façade; instead, it’s a water treatment plant and storage facility supplying water to the city of Hastings. Alex McVinnie-Maidment arrived early in the morning to photograph one of the storage tanks at Waiaroha/Heretaunga Water Discovery Centre. Just as he had composed the image, a flock of birds flew into the frame.

The Kāi Tahu waka Kōtukumairangi arrives at Okains Bay for Waitangi Day commemorations on the Banks Peninsula. Alden Williams gained permission from mana whenua to fly above the waka in order to capture this image. Normally, Kōtukumairangi resides at Okains Bay Museum, but emerges for special occasions such as this and SailGP Lyttelton.

The official opening of a new 45-million-litre reservoir in South Auckland was conducted early in the morning, creating long shadows on the team of construction workers standing on its roof. The reservoir holds the equivalent of 18 Olympic swimming pools, and is part of the city’s planning for its projected 29 per cent population growth in the next two decades.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force’s No. 5 Squadron conducts a final P-3 Orion flypast over the North Island before the retirement of their fleet. Naomi James captured this image from the back seat of a T-6C Texan, shooting through the canopy as it rolled and inverted over the top of the P-3 Orions. Working with the heavy G-forces during the roll was a challenge, she says.

On a clear April morning, Mitchell Clark’s assignment was to document Wings & Water’s Cessna 206 floatplane for the Te Anau-based scenic flight company. “As fun as it looks to shoot from aircraft, it does come with its challenges,” says Clark. In his case, that involved photographing through a small gap in the front window from the back seat.

The Tasman River carves paths through sediment and pebbles on its way from Tasman Lake to Lake Pukaki. The grey areas are the active parts of the river, while the brown areas of vegetation bear marks of the river in flood. “It looked a bit like an optical illusion from the air,” says Emma Willetts.

When Danny Rood heard the news that a sperm whale had washed up on South New Brighton Beach—a rare event—he decided it was worth documenting the scene. When he arrived, diggers were cautiously moving the whale in advance of it being transported to a burial site. It was a damp, blustery November day, but Rood gambled on putting his drone up and captured this shot.

Six miles off the coast of Kaikōura, photographer Simon Lucas found a pod of some 200 Dusky dolphins and decided to shoot upwards to capture “the dolphin’s perspective”. In two and a half years guiding dolphin watching trips in Kaikōura, Lucas has only encountered visibility like this once.

Scott Howes stopped to fix his crampons in the middle of crossing Ball Pass. When he looked up, his friend Kaleb had continued ahead, a lone figure dwarfed by the Mount Cook Range and the Tasman Glacier. Appreciating the sense of scale, Howes picked up his camera and rolled off a few frames.

On a trip to summit Mount Tongariro, Rebecca Kempton passed by a rocky peak overlooking the South Crater, and a couple of members of her group decided to climb it for a better view. Just as they reached the top, the sun shone into the crater, and the cloud lifted in the valley below.

There was a perfect swell on the forecast, so Oscar Hetherington chased it to Raglan, capturing Tana Clapham surfing his local break at sunrise. “It was a shoot that I'd had in mind for a few months but I wasn't sure if it would ever line up,” says Hetherington, “so I was blown away when it did.”

Australian competitor Aidan Laing lost his ski during take-off in the Freeski Big Air qualifying round at the Wānaka Winter Games. It didn’t prevent him completing his rotation, but he did crash. (He was okay.) Big air events, as the name suggests, involve jumping as high as possible and performing tricks.

Community Transmission is a double-black diamond single-track mountain-biking trail in Christchurch Adventure Park—and was the stage for the second round of the MTBNZ National Down Hill event series in 2023. Fiona Glennie spent the day trackside, capturing a rider tackling the rock garden section in the finals run.

With a storm approaching, members of Youth Search and Rescue struggle to raise a radio mast ahead of a weekend of intensive training. Though it was February, it was cold and windy on the tops of the rugged Kaimai Range. “It was difficult even standing up,” says photographer Adrian Malloch.

In October 2023, thousands gathered in the centre of Aucklanders for a rally opposing the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. It was to be the first of many protests after hostilities in the region began on October 7. “Negotiating the large crowd that had gathered was the most challenging,” says Dean Purcell. “With that many people, it is very easy to miss key moments.”

November 8 is the most important date in the Rātana Church calendar, marking the day the prophet Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana was visited by the Holy Spirit. Today, it’s celebrated by hundreds of people making the pilgrimage to attend the special service at Te Temepara Tapu o Ihoa, the pā’s temple. Many are dressed in blues and purples, colours of the Rātana Star and Moon.

WOZER is a collective of skaters, musicians, artists and activists which has revolutionised the skate scene of Wellington, leading to women, girls and gender minorities taking up space at formerly male-dominated skateparks. The challenge in documenting WOZER? “Feeling old while spending so much time around Gen Z kids,” says Becki Moss.

A local state of emergency was declared for Christchurch when a wildfire began on February 14, 2024. Two days later, the fire covered 700 hectares, and 110 properties had been evacuated. The hardest part of documenting the fire was simply getting around, says Chris Skelton: “trying to get myself to locations to capture the best frames when neighbourhoods were evacuated and roads were closed”.

It started when Joe Harrison was pushing his newborn son’s pram around the neighbourhood: the idea of documenting Christchurch's two main rivers from their sources, through their urban catchments, and finally to the estuary where they meet and flow out to sea. Along the way, Harrison met various people who interact with the Avon River/Ōtakaro and Ōpāwaho/Heathcote rivers.

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